Coronavirus live updates: Greece faces ‘huge difficulties’ when flights resume; Toronto makes masks mandatory
Governments in Nigeria and Senegal are the latest in West Africa to ease restrictions on internal travel and reopen schools, amid increasing steps by countries to adapt daily life to the risks of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Senegal’s state of emergency and curfew, imposed on March 23rd will be lifted from tomorrow, President Macky Sall said in a televised address yesterday. Air borders will reopen from July 15, with international flights resuming under a raft of health protocols set to be announced.
Land and sea borders will remain closed, yet Sall, who is himself under quarantine after coming into contact with an infected person, said the loosening of measures would support the country’s economy. Growth is predicted to collapse from 6.2% last year to 1.1% this year or less, due to the epidemic.
Two-thirds of Senegal’s 6,800 infections have recovered, while 112 people have died.
Officials in Nigeria, have also lifted bans on interstate travel and allowed domestic flights to resume. Universities and secondary schools will reopen for final-year students too to sit exams while primary schools and nurseries remain closed.
There are 25,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Nigeria, the third largest outbreak in Africa, doubling over the last three weeks. 9,400 people have recovered and 573 people have died.
Officials are keen to ease measures as quickly as possible amid bleak projections for Africa’s largest economy.
Last week, the World Bank said 5 million people could fall into poverty this year, in what could be the worst economic recession since the 1980s, caused by the pandemic and a global oil price crash.
Nigeria already has the highest number of people living in extreme poverty in the world, 94 million according to the World Poverty Clock, which monitors global progress against poverty.
Canada’s largest city will make face masks mandatory in public spaces as it works to control the spread of the coronavirus. On Tuesday morning, Toronto’s mayor and the city’s medical officer announced the new rules, which will take effect on 7 July if the city council passes the motion today.
“You have told us you don’t want to see a repeat of what you see when you turn on your TV and see reports from the United States,” said mayor John Tory, in reference to a surge in coronavirus infections throughout the south-western parts of the US.
While Canada is believed to be over the worst of the virus, the majority of new Covid-19 cases have been centred around the greater Toronto area.
The announcement comes a day after municipalities in Ontario asked the province to implement a mask requirement. But premier Doug Ford had said a provincial order would be difficult to enforce, instead suggesting that municipalities put their own rules in place.
On Tuesday morning, the neighbouring cities of Brampton and Mississauga also announced new requirements that residents wear masks when possible in indoor public locations.
Tory said there wouldn’t be “aggressive” enforcement of the new rules, instead working with residents to educate them about the importance of masks.
“It is about respecting and protecting each other,” he said, expecting the requirement to be in place until at least September.
With travel restrictions in place, dozens of American universities based in Italy could close their doors for good, leaving hundreds of professors jobless unless US students are allowed to return to Europe, Lorenzo Tondo reports.
According to the Open Door report, more than 35,000 students enrolled in American universities in Italy may not return, given the restrictions put in place to contain the spread of Covid-19.
“It is a very dramatic situation in which almost all in-person summer study sessions have already been cancelled,” says Matteo Duni, president of ASAUI, the Association of Scholars at American Universities in Italy. “Some small- and medium-sized institutions risk closure for lack of enrolments, and other American universities with programmes in Italy could decide to keep their students in the States.”
There are more than 160 American institutions of higher learning in Italy, among colleges, summer schools and universities, the majority of which are based in Rome and Florence. Among the most famous are Syracuse, New York University, Kent State in Florence, and Cornell, Notre Dame, and Temple University in Rome. With the onset of the coronavirus emergency in Italy, between the end of February and early March, all American students in Italy were sent back to the US by their home campuses. It is by no means clear when students may return to Italy.
“This is not just an Italian problem,” says Duni. “Other European countries, like France and Spain, are also affected because they, too, host hundreds of American institutions.”
Most US visitors are set to remain banned from entering the European Union because of the country’s rising infection rate.
Universities are studying various solutions, among which the possibility of European students enrolled in the US, if not allowed to return there, to attend classes in American universities based in Europe.
Over in Greece prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis says the nation should brace for “a very difficult tourist period” ahead of international flights resuming to all destinations tomorrow, Helena Smith reports.
Hosting a virtual cabinet meeting earlier the centre right leader warned the tourist-dependent country was likely to face “huge difficulties” as it grapples with the economic fallout of the pandemic. “We are aware that the bar is set very low and that this will be a very difficult tourist period but we will do the best we can,” he told ministers.
As Greece’s heavy industry, tourism accounts for over 25 percent of GDP according to the Greek Tourism Confederation (SETE). Last year it brought in more than 18.1 billion euros in earnings – revenue that played a pivotal role in reviving the country’s debt-stricken economy – employing close to a million people.
This year tourism officials say they will be lucky if revenues hit the 4-5 billion euro mark not least because the UK, US, Russia and Sweden are among the countries that generate almost a quarter of that income and as a result of their ‘epidemiological profiles’ have yet to be given the green light to resume flights to the popular holiday destination.
Announcing what the Greek media described as a “strategic deal” with the travel giant TUI, the Greek tourism minister Harry Theoharis said the hope this year was to attract 50 percent of the total number of holidaymakers who had travelled to Greece with the company in 2019. “We have a common target to bring 50 percent of last year’s tourists,” he said noting that TUI brought between 2.8 to 3 million visitors to the country in 2019.
On Monday Athens announced that it would continue to suspend air links with the UK and Sweden until July 15th when travel from both countries will be reviewed again.
Australia’s defence force is to acquire long-range missiles and research hypersonic weapons systems, as Scott Morrison warns the country to prepare for a more dangerous post-Covid-19 world and an increasingly contested Indo-Pacific region.
The Australian prime minister will use a speech on Wednesday to outline a more muscular defence posture, arguing the ADF needs “stronger deterrence capabilities” as the Indo-Pacific becomes “the focus of the dominant global contest of our age” amid tensions between China and the United States.
Morrison will reveal a pledge to spend $270bn on new and upgraded defence capabilities over the next decade – a substantial increase from the $195bn committed in the 10 years from 2016 when the last defence white paper was released, although it covers a later time period.
You can read the full story from our Guardian Australia political reporter, Daniel Hurst, here:
Tokyo is to move away from numerical targets in containing Covid-19, and rely more on advice from a committee of experts.
Japan’s capital, which has a population of 14 million, has sought to keep new cases below20 a day since the country lifted a state of emergency on May 25, but has experienced five consecutive days of more than 50 new recorded cases.
On Tuesday, 54 infections were reported in Tokyo, which is two weeks into the final phase of loosening coronavirus restrictions.
Officials have repeatedly said there is no need to declare a new state of emergency and that the medical system can handle the current level of cases, with increased testing partly explaining the rise in infections.
It’s an extremely different situation from what it was at the end of March when patients were increasing rapidly, but we still must be watchful,” Governor Yuriko Koike told a news conference, where she announced the new measures would start on Wednesday.
Under the new guidance, Tokyo will move away from the strict numerical targets to determine if new restrictions are needed. A group of experts will instead evaluate the situation on a weekly basis.
China has stopped almost all imports of pork from the Netherlands, following Covid-19 outbreaks at some of the largest Dutch slaughterhouses.
China banned meat delivered by four of the largest Dutch abattoirs on Sunday, a Dutch government spokeswoman said on Tuesday.
It gave no specific reason for the ban, but workers at all of the abattoirs have recently been infected with coronavirus, said Elise van den Bosch.
“Clearly, China is looking for the source of its second wave of Covid-19 infections, which they might feel could come from imported meat”, she said. “But there is no scientific evidence for the possible transmission of the virus through food or packaging materials.”
Large outbreaks at slaughterhouses in the Netherlands and across Europe are thought to have been caused by the close working conditions and cramped shared housing of the migrant workers who largely operate them.
The United Nations has called on governments for nearly $10bn in aid for Syria, where soaring food prices amid the coronavirus pandemic have exacerbated the humanitarian crisis.
Millions of people have been displaced by the nine-year war in the country.
On Tuesday, 60 governments and non-official agencies attended a virtual fundraising event hosted by the European Union.
“Syrian men, women and children have experienced injury, displacement, destruction, terror … on a massive scale,” Geir Pedersen, the UN special envoy for Syria, said. “The danger of Covid-19 remains acute.”
According to a tally by Johns Hopkins University, there have only been 269 confirmed cases in Syria, but the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned the real situation is probably far worse and the number of infections likely to accelerate.
The UN said it needed $3.8bn in aid this year inside Syria, where 11 million people require help and protection.
Another $6.04bn is needed to help the 6.6. million Syrians who have fled the world’s biggest refugee crisis.
Read the original article at The Guardian